Misty Lake sticklebacks COSEWIC asessment and status report: chapter 9

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Special Significance of the Species

The parapatric stickleback pair found in the Misty Lake system is one of three highly divergent lake-stream stickleback pairs known to occur; this pair is invaluable to the study of evolutionary processes. The Misty Lake pair may be one of the best examples of parapatric divergence in nature (Taylor pers. comm. 2005), as it is likely that the Misty Lake system was colonized by a single dimorphic (for mtDNA clades) form that diverged in parapatry along a lake-stream ecotone through divergent selection (Hendry et al. 2002). Molecular data strongly suggest that the lake-stream pairs on Graham Island and northern Vancouver Island evolved separately through parallel evolution (Thompson et al. 1997).